Tuesday, May 21, 2013

By now, hockey fans have probably seen the video of a group of Toronto Maple Leafs fans watching last week’s Game 7 loss to the Bruins. If you haven’t, it’s below. Fair warning: It’s downright painful to watch.

You don’t have to be a Leaf fan or even follow hockey to understand what you’re witnessing. If you’ve been a die-hard fan of a team in any sport for long enough, chances are you’ve suffered through watching a game like that. Depending on which teams you follow, you may have been there far more often than you’d care to remember.

There’s no right or wrong way to react to the sight of your favorite team self-destructing on national television. But through the years, fans seemed to have developed a variety of methods for handling it. The next time you have to sit through a sports disaster for the ages, here are 20 different types of unhappy sports fans you might find yourself in the room with.

5 comments:

My Grandfather used to just turn the TV off whenever the Leafs or Jays where going downhill fast. The most famous moment in our family was Game 7 between the Leafs and Kings when Gretzky put them up by 2. For a few surreal seconds, the entire family just sat there in silence in front of a black TV screen.

Nothing worse than seeing the opposing team celebrate a championship in your building. The whole crowd goes numb and you hear a small section of the other team's fans cheering in the distance. The worst is seeing the players all throw their gear up in the air. It's chilling.

I feel like the pessimist can be okay sometimes. For example, in a case where you are not able to watch the game and won't find out the result until after. Telling yourself that your team is going to lose might help. If they do lose, you expected it and prepared yourself for the bad news. if they won, you are the happiest person around.

The Philosophy Fan This fan is related to both The "How?" Fan and The Fan Who Says “I Knew It”. This fan sometimes is The "How?" Fan except during the game. He won't offer up any explanation until after the game, but not before first trying to be The Non-Reaction Fan. They will sit silent for a time, but won't be able to hold it in and will go of on many tangents explaining how and where it all went wrong. Normally, they will explain that they knew it all along, but unlike the The Fan Who Says “I Knew It”, they will have only said it on the inside in the moment.

The Fan Who is On Your Side and Tries to Use Reverse Psychology If you are The Non-Reaction Fan, this is one of the worst fans to be with. This fan will be deeply hurt on the inside, but openly will be explaining how somehow this is all ok, and that we will learn from this, and they're glad that it happened now rather than later. At times, this fan will even say something to the effect that the fans of the other team must be so happy, like you even care at all. For some reason, this fan will always be someone you're actually pretty close to, but in the moment you will hate them.

As a Devils fan, I can't understand completely what it felt like, but the game 7 loss to the Hurricanes years ago still cuts like a knife. I was in college and unable to watch, so my girlfriend was texting me the score and the time. When I got the text that they had tied, then quickly that the game was over and we'd lost it was like being kicked in the gut. I honestly went into a mild form of shock, ignoring things around me, just playing it over and over again in my head.